Congress ruled Delhi for 15 years from 1998 to 2013. But after the movement-born Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) entered politics, the Congress has reached the third place after AAP and BJP. The country’s oldest party is struggling to save its existence in the country’s capital Delhi. In fact, the challenge before the Congress is to make a strong comeback from the continuous defeat in the elections.
In fact, the performance of Congress in Delhi is at its lowest level. The party got only 2.79 percent votes in the by-elections held in Rajinder Nagar assembly seat recently. Not only this, the bail of Congress candidate Prem Lata was also forfeited. In the last assembly elections, the Congress had secured less than 4.26 per cent vote share. The party has not won a single seat in the last two assembly elections in Delhi.
Expressing concern over the Congress’s poor performance, a senior party leader told The Indian Express, “We got 2 per cent votes and we were neither trolled on social media nor did the mainstream media give us much importance. This is a very worrying picture. This shows that people and media do not expect much from us now. Earlier this used to happen with BSP and other regional parties in Delhi.
Party leaders are getting disillusioned: The weak performance of the Congress has become a problem for the party, but in the meantime, many leaders are also losing their disillusionment with the party. People are changing teams. As the Congress continues to falter, so are its leaders. Three-time Congress MLA from Jangpura Tarvinder Singh Marwah joined the BJP on Wednesday.
A BJP MP told The Indian Express, “I don’t see the need to take anyone from the Congress to the BJP. Because in Delhi the party is already weak.
Significantly, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, the Congress came second with 22.5 percent votes, but in the 2020 Delhi Assembly elections, the party’s vote share fell to 4.26 percent. Congress could not win even a single seat in the results.
Congress sources say that there are many senior state level leaders who are no longer active in the organization and are busy with their business or their assembly constituencies. The party functionary said, “Many of these leaders are also in touch with AAP or BJP. If the situation remains like this, then many more leaders may leave the party when the Lok Sabha elections (2024) approach.
In such a situation, the question in front of the Congress is that how will the continuous poor performance in the elections and the joining of party leaders to other parties decide its return. On top of this, senior leaders not being active to strengthen the party is also like a big problem for the party.
On the other hand, other senior party functionaries said that the Congress needs to take forward its popular and ambitious leaders. Because our fight is against Kejriwal’s popularity and the powerful organization of BJP. So we need a leader with massive popularity and a better strategist, a long term plan and a team to execute it properly.